Conduct unbecoming. Abuse and threat
This is a summary of a decision by a Lawyers Standards Committee under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006. This summary was published in LawTalk 756.
A lawyer was found guilty of unsatisfactory conduct and fined by a Standards Committee after verbally abusing a client’s former manager and threatening to pull down a workplace gate with his vehicle.
The lawyer’s client had been dismissed from the workplace some months before. The lawyer and the client arrived at the main gate together and insisted on entering. The manager, who was the complainant, was called from his home; when he arrived he told the lawyer and the client they could enter on foot and would have to leave the vehicle at the gate. At that point, according to the manager, the lawyer became angry and aggressive, verbally abused him, and threatened to pull the gate down with his vehicle. He took a rope from the back of the vehicle, but desisted after the client implored him not to attach it to the gate.
The manager told the Standards Committee he believed the lawyer might have been drinking. The lawyer denied this: he said he had the ability to dilate his pupils and manipulate his facial expression. He said that the rope was only a small boat rope, and that he was being antagonised by the manager and was simply giving him some back.
The Standards Committee noted that the salient facts were not disputed and that the lawyer had admitted threatening to pull down the gate using unlawful force. It found he had breached his obligation under the Conduct and Client Care Rules to maintain proper standards of professionalism in his dealings (Rule 10). His conduct was also unacceptable as measured against the standards of “competent, ethical and responsible practitioners” (B v Medical Council [2005] 3 NZLR 810).
The Standards Committee found the lawyer guilty of unsatisfactory conduct in the form of conduct unbecoming. It censured him and fined him $500, and also ordered him to pay $1,000 in costs to the New Zealand Law Society.